There Is Indeed A Notable Statement Quoted By Ritter, Which If
Trustworthy Would Lead To Another Conclusion:
"Already in the 20th year of
the Hijra (A.D. 641) had the Nubas and Bejas hastened to the help of
the Greek Christians of Oxyrhynchus (Bahnasa of the Arabs) ...
Against
the first invasion of the Mahommedans, and according to the exaggerated
representations of the Arabian Annalists, the army which they brought
consisted of 50,000 men and 1300 war-elephants."[4] The Nubians
certainly must have tamed elephants on some scale down to a late period
in the Middle Ages, for elephants, - in one case three annually, - formed a
frequent part of the tribute paid by Nubia to the Mahomedan sovereigns of
Egypt at least to the end of the 13th century; but the passage quoted is
too isolated to be accepted without corroboration. The only approach to
such a corroboration that I know of is a statement by Poggio in the matter
appended to his account of Conti's Travels. He there repeats some
information derived from the Abyssinian envoys who visited Pope Eugenius
IV. about 1440, and one of his notes is: "They have elephants very large
and in great numbers; some kept for ostentation or pleasure, some as
useful in war. They are hunted; the old ones killed, the young ones taken
and tamed." But the facts on which this was founded probably amounted to
no more than what Cosmas had stated. I believe no trustworthy authority
since the Portuguese discoveries confirms the use of the elephant in
Abyssinia;[5] and Ludolf, whose information was excellent, distinctly
says that the Abyssinians did not tame them.
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